About me
Adi Soesan Malishev
I helps teams and leaders make better decisions and connect purpose to outcomes.
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My work blends product thinking, OKRs, and modern ways of working. I draw from years in startups, working across different products and services, and three years sailing around the world with my family while coaching remotely.
Today I live in Spain and work with organizations around the world and across timezones. I especially enjoy working with teams where the goals are complex and the pressure is high. Organizations building product capabilities and teams, or figuring out how distributed work actually works.
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​​Where I Come From
I spent most of my career in product management, but never in the neat, linear way.
I worked on customer-facing web and mobile products, APIs, physical products, and service operations, which I productized as an intangible product using product thinking alongside service design.
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When my family and I left everything behind to sail around the world, I was able to follow another dream: coaching. Sailing forced me to be honest about decision making, skills, and capacity. I realized I'd been using work methodologies in my day-to-day life on the boat, and I could bring my lived experience back into how I thought about teams, process, and change. That integration became the foundation of how I coach now.​
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Sailing and product thinking follow the same rule:
you set a clear direction and adjust to the conditions, not force the plan.
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What I've Built
I've been part of two startups from Series A through hyper-growth. During COVID, I led a product pivot that kept a startup alive and helped secure its next funding round. I've aligned product, sales, and support around shared outcomes, and helped teams move from firefighting to proactive focused delivery.
In coaching, I supported a team through their first year of OKRs, which contributed to a 12% revenue lift. I also helped legacy organizations build product teams and show that it's possible to experiment with minimum risk and build customer-facing products in weeks instead of months.
What Sailing Taught Me
Living on a boat while working remotely changed how I think about everything. When you're coordinating across distance and uncertainty, vague communication creates risk. Sustainable progress comes from simple, consistent movement, not perfection. And everything is solvable if you shift your perspective. The question is never "if," it's "how."
​What I Believe
I believe in owning it, not waiting for luck, and giving real permission to fail. That means teaching teams how to identify assumptions and run experiments.
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Transformation doesn't come from mandates. It comes from trust, the right questions, and small shifts in how people work together. Most communication problems are clarity problems, and most alignment problems are trust problems.
Nothing is impossible when you're willing to question your point of view and stay curious about what's actually true.
My approach is practical and holistic. I follow principles and adapt methodologies to my clients and situation-specific needs.
Speaking & Workshops
I run live and remote sessions on product thinking, soft skills for product managers, remote work and team collaboration, OKRs, intentional leadership, and our experience as a sailing nomad family.
If you're looking for a speaker who brings practical insight with a unique perspective, let's talk.